Archive for July 26th 2006

Cadet

July 26th 2006 by E..

I’ll write about the All About The Music Festival during my day off (tomorrow, that is), but for now, here’s something that has set of my “Angry At People” alarm again…

As I usually do, I got a letter from Temple today, with some information that brought up a peeve of mine that I have harbored for quite some time now…The letter is from the Chairperson of the Department of Military Science at Temple University, and he is here to offer me an incentive to join Temple’s Army Reserve Officer Training Corps, better known as the ROTC…those four letters alone invoke images of Mark Metcalf, but I digress…His incentive for me to take a Military Science class and join the ranks of the “strong leaders” that are the ROTC Cadets is this, and I quote (and the typeface styles are as they appear in this letter):

“If you have earned at least a 3.0 high school GPA and 1050 or better on the SAT you are eligible to earn $500 dollars FREE $ MONEY just for taking one of my classes“

There’s a lot going on in that sentence, and again I wish to make clear that what I am about to say is my opinion and should be taken as such…If you agree with me, that’s fine; if you disagree, that’s swell too…

Now, I never said that I was the smartest student in the world…I know plenty of people who are really smart and got lousy grades, and I know morons who somehow aced every single class they took…I never felt that I had to get straight A’s, but I always did my best to do my best, and I always did just that…On the whole, I got mostly B’s and a few A’s here and there…I was told in 8th grade by Mrs. Pugach, who was one of my favorite teachers ever, that there’s nothing wrong with getting C’s, and B’s are terrific, A’s are given when someone is perfect, and no one is perfect, so just deal with it…she’s right, and that’s what helped me get through high school without making myself nuts over trying to get perfect grades…all that established, here’s what I have to say about this “incentive”

A 1050 on the new SAT is not a great score…Akiba didn’t use a GPA system, so I really can’t comment on that, but I do know that if you get a 1050 on your SAT, either you are actually a smart person and accidentally filled in all the right bubbles, but because you missed a question, you filled them all in on the wrong lines, or you are a bit “nischt en gansen”, as my people like to say…

What this says to me is that the ROTC, and by association, the United States Military, seek out the students who are lacking in book smarts, and enlist them in our nation’s armed forces…I’ll give you 10 seconds to think about that…

9…

8…

Sweet Zombie Jesus!

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